If I Had Legs I’d Kick You review – Rose Byrne mesmerises in raw unfiltered role | Films | Entertainment

Director Mary Bronstein isn’t what you’d call prolific – this is only her second film in 17 years following her acclaimed 2008 debut Yeast. Like all good things, though, her work is worth waiting for. Her latest is no exception and is rightly garnering huge praise and awards across the board, mainly for leading lady Rose Byrne.

She is perfectly cast here as Linda, a put-upon mother struggling with the mental load of juggling work and various crises alongside caring for her ill daughter.

A psychotherapist by trade, she has more personal baggage than Kim Kardashian on a weekend away. Linda unloads her problems on her own therapist (played by a deadpan Conan O’Brien), whose solution to everything seems to be a good night’s sleep and who is increasingly exasperated by her’s lack of boundaries.

We never learn what Linda’s daughter’s specific issue is. All that’s made clear is that her aliment is some sort of pediatric feeding disorder. Linda feeds her through a tube at night and drives her to a program in a hospital daily, meaning she never gets any downtime for herself.

Director Bronstein makes an appearance in the hospital scenes as Dr Spring, who adds to Linda’s stress by threatening to remove the child from the program if she doesn’t gain a specific amount of weight – something Linda feels is setting them up to fail.

With her husband (Christian Slater) away working as a ship’s captain Linda is left to carry the load alone and her problems are comopunded when their apartment is flooded after the ceiling collapses. This forces her to move to a shabby motel, isolating her even further.

Her main interactions in their temporary home are with a snarky shop assistant Diana (Ivy Wolk), who goes out of her way to make it as painful as possible for Linda to purchase her badly needed nightly bottle of wine, and the motel superintendent James (A$AP Rocky).

While her own life implodes, she also finds herself caught up in a missing persons case when one of her most demanding clients, Caroline (Danielle Macdonald), dumps her baby on Linda before taking off while in the middle of a meltdown.

Suffice to say, Linda is dealing with a lot, and Byrne is mesmerising in the role. She is a hugely versatile actress and one of the best talents around at the moment, but she has done so many comedies and lighter fare in recent times that it is easy to forget just how good she is.

Byrne gives a raw and nuanced performace that is completely deserving of the awards she has already garnered and she must surely be a frontrunner for the Best Actress Oscar when the ceremony takes place on March 15.

At times, it is like watching a fever dream, compounded by the fact that we don’t see Linda’s daughter until the very end. While we hear her and she is a presence in the scenes, this directorial decision allows us to focus on Linda’s claustrophobic feeling about her world and makes for an even more intense viewing experience.

While Linda’s struggles are a heightened reality, many will relate to her inner turmoil of trying to do the best for her child while also keeping on top of day-to-day life, and how that can leave you overwhelmed. You don’t have to be a parent to understand the feeling of drowning in your day-to-day responsibilities.

This is the kind of film that could only be directed by a woman and in the absence of a talent like Byrne it could have been a mess. But as it is, this is an uncompromising look at motherhood and the struggles of modern life that sticks with you long after the credits roll.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is in UK cinemas from Friday.